Atheism for adolescents

Matt Kaufmann of the Boundless webzine reports on what happens when you mix together young blasphemers, marketing, and the internet.

Comments

[dmedici]

I'll offer decades of the rosary for this blasphemy. Anyone care to join in?

[Rick]

I'll second that and gladly pray for all our young! Evil tends to reinvent itself in different ways. Elliot's great wasteland now has market appeal, or perhaps this has become the great teen age wasteland.

Based on his study of atheism, the Psychologist Paul Vitz offers this:
I assume that the major barriers to belief in God are not rational but-in a general sense- can be called psychological...I am quite convinced that for every person strongly swayed by rational argument there are many, many more affected by nonrational psychological factors...I propose that neurotic psychological barriers to belief in God are of great importance. What some of these might be I will mention shortly. For believers, therefore, it is important to keep in mind that psychological motives and pressures that one is often unaware of, often lie behind unbelief...One of the earliest theorists of the unconscious, St. Paul, wrote, "I can will what is right, but I cannot do it . . . I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind . . ." (Rom. 7:18, 23). Thus, it seems to me sound theology as well as sound psychology that psychological factors can be impediments to belief as well as behavior, and that these may often be unconscious factors as well. (http://www.leaderu.com/truth/1truth12.html)

Dr. Vitz is not excusing it atheism, but in reality is showing that atheism may be nothing but a projection of Freud's and other's theories, and but a mass form of neurosis (some teenager's, etc.)and a convenient "crutch" for some. His books and articles are well worth reading for anyone that dialogues with atheists, I have seen little else done on the psychology of atheism.

Atheists often like to tell believers that religion is but a human invented crutch. But, when an atheist's own arguments are turned back against him and he is told that his atheism is nothing but an irrational form of opiate, it tends to render a rather perplexed look. Here, I think is a good lace to begin dialogue and extend the practice of charity. We must also assume that God's grace is acting on that person as well, and truth often invites by subtle participation.

[Sheryl D.]

What Dr. Vitz refers to as the "neurotic psychological barriers" to belief in a loving Fatherly God are certainly on display here in Eugene, as well as the strange belief systems with which the atheist trys, to no avail, to plug the God-shaped hole in his heart.

[cranky]

Be a fool and reap a fool's reward.

I've been reading Sirach because it's there. Sirach 30:7-9, 13 also Sirach 26:10-12 may fit for explaining these kids futures before they die. After death, things get grimmer if I understand the Catechism.

[Rick]

A sinful action has its own immediate punishment, the sinner cannot escape the evil being done and the 3-fold alienation it brings about towards God, self and others. The more grave the sin, the more grave the punishment and alienation. If Hell is alienation from God, It seems like these poor chaps are suffering some of this right now, I cannot imagine what things could be like on the other side.

I hope and pray that there is some type of invincible ignorance on the part of these kids that may lessen their culpability.

[Celestial SeraphiMan]

Shall we pray for young people to encounter Christ Himself?

[Rick]

It worked for St. Paul. But if not a direct encounter with Jesus, perhaps an indirect one through the love of others. Who knows, if their zeal can be converted to God what could happen. Some great sinners have become great Christians and saints!

[JMC]

The psychological factor is beyond doubt, as far as I'm concerned. It's a well-known truism in lay circles that mental illness causes one of two reactions toward religion: one either becomes pathologically obsessed by it, or pathologically afraid of it. Having relatives with mental illness, I've seen both reactions, often in the same house.

And the Victorians were right on with the "mournful atheist" thing. We see that today, too. Just drive by any schoolyard during recess. I remember recesses where even teenagers enjoyed playing things like "tag" and "pony," or other active games; by contrast, when I drive by a schoolyard today, all I see are kids standing around looking as if their best friend died, even in elementary playgrounds. It breaks my heart to the point that I will sometimes go out of my way to avoid passing playgrounds.

Invincible ignorance? In many cases, undoubtedly. At best, their parents never told them about God, and they're certainly never going to hear about Him in school, where mentioning God's name will get a teacher fired faster than we used to get sent to the principal's office for saying the f-word. At worst, religion is actively discouraged at home.

Rosaries. Lots of Rosaries. It's the only hope these kids have.

[Cristina A. Montes]

Sometimes I wonder if adolescent atheism is simply a species of adolescent rebellion.

I heard a priest tell of the time he spoke at a mandatory retreat in a high school. In the middle of his talk, someone in the audience blurted out, "Father, we're atheists!" The priest said, "Ok, pretend first that there's a God then I'll talk to you later!"

[Diane O'Donnell]

I am the DRE at our Parish. I have been asked by one of our 8th Grade Catechists how to counteract the teaching of evolution which her students are learning as fact in their public schools. Please help me. I was appalled last Monday to hear on prime time news and Nightline that Jesus' bones were discovered. What an assault on Christianity! It must be from the pits of Hell, masquerading as "new" scientific proof that Jesus really existed. Millions who have weak or no faith in Jesus but have seen this and it makes me angry.

[Cristina A. Montes]

"I am the DRE at our Parish. I have been asked by one of our 8th Grade Catechists how to counteract the teaching of evolution which her students are learning as fact in their public schools. Please help me."

I don't know if this will help, but this is how it was explained to me when I was a kid: Even if evolution were true, that does not mean that God could not have create the world. Man may have come from monkeys, but who made the monkeys? And who gave the monkeys their souls?

For adults, it may be a simplistic way of putting it, but it was enough for me when I was a kid, and it kept me from turning atheist during adolescence. :)